Raw Crabs Marinated in Soy Sauce

Ganjang-gejang 간장게장

Hi everybody! I’m eventually releasing my ganjang-gejang recipe today. You’d be surprised at how many people have requested this recipe through the forum, social media, email, and even in person. This recipe might look simple to you, but it took me years to develop. It’s by far the best result!

In the video you can see how I handle these fresh crabs by putting them in the freezer for two hours. If you freeze them longer, the ganjang-gejang will not be good, and if you freeze them less, then they will come back alive when you take them out of the freezer. This might freak you out so much that you couldn’t enjoy the dish, even if you could make it from jumping crabs. : )

One day last year, I got good quality female crabs to film this recipe. When I came home, I kept them in the freezer, but I totally forgot about the crabs until the next day! My crabs were frozen hard like rocks! Even if you thaw them out nicely, they won’t be delicious anymore and their flesh will be a viscous liquid.

One spring day this year, I attempted to film the recipe again. I bought very beautiful blue crabs, but this time I wasn’t patient enough to wait for 2 hours to freeze them. My makeup was done, and I was supposed to meet friends in the afternoon, so I waited just 1 hour. When I took them out they looked ok and calm, so I started filming. Sooner or later they started to become really active, especially in the water in my sink.

I was so scared that I felt sweat trickling down my back. I made ganjang-gejang that day, but I gave up filming it because I knew it wouldn’t look good. My mother, on the other hand, always makes gejang with live crabs and she has no problem handling them. You can do it like her if you’re brave enough; you don’t need to freeze them at all.

For the filming of this video, I waited very patiently for 2 hours while the crabs went to sleep, and it turned out very well.

Directions

Create marinade by combining soy sauce, water, dried chili pepper, ginger, apple, dried kelp, onion, garlic, and rice syrup in a heavy pot. Cover and bring it to a boil over medium high heat for 20 minutes, until boiling.

Turn down the heat to low and keep boiling the marinade for another hour.

Let the marinade cool down a little bit, strain it, and then let it cool down thoroughly. Set aside.

Take the crabs out of the freezer. Grab one crab and put on the cutting board belly up. Remove the apron (the piece folded around under the body), by lifting it and twisting it off. Turn it over. Grab the shell with one hand and split it open with your other hand. Remove the gills with a knife or your fingers. Cut off any stringy stuff (eyes & antennae) from the edge of the shell with scissors. Clean all the crabs this way, and keep track of which shell goes with which body.

Brush the crabs in cold running water to clean them thoroughly. But be sure not to wash away the tomalley (aka “mustard”). Drain and put each shell back on the body it belongs to, so that it looks a whole crab.

Put the crab into a wide mouth glass jar or container, belly up. Pour the marinade into the jar and press the crabs down with something heavy like a rock, so they remain submerged. Refrigerate for 24 hours.

How to eat:

Serve with rice.

Cut the crab into bite size pieces with a knife or scissors. Crush the hard claw with the back of your knife, which will help you get to the delicious meat without damaging your teeth. There are many stories in Korea of people breaking their teeth or dentures on ganjang-gejang.

Put a few spoons of rice into the shell, and mix it up with the tomalley, roe and marinade in there. Eat it out of the shell with a spoon.

Put some rice mixed with marinade on a sheet of roasted kim (seaweed paper), add some sliced cucumber (optional) and eat.

Enjoy the recipe!

Tips for making awesome ganjang-gejang:

Buy live crabs and freeze them for 2 hours before you start. If you like roe, then be sure to buy female crabs during spawning season when they should have eggs. If you’re unsure of the season or the sex of the crab, ask your fishmonger before you buy them.

If you don’t want to clean crabs, you can ask your fishmonger to do it for you, and then you don’t need to freeze them either.

I sometimes find some worms inside the gills. The worms aren’t harmful, but nobody wants to eat worms in their sauce, which is why I remove the gills entirely.

Korean people call this dish a “rice thief” (밥도둑: “bap-do-duk”) because it goes so well with rice that before you know it, all the rice will be gone from your bowl!

After eating your ganjang-gejang you’ll probably have some leftover marinade at the bottom. Boil it, cool it down, and keep it in the fridge to use in stir-fried vegetables, or to simply mix with rice and wrap in kim for a quick snack or lunch.

If you want to keep this for over a week, you’ll need to do a little work to safely preserve it. The crabs and the marinade need to be separated, and the crabs should be portioned into plastic bags and frozen. The marinade needs to be boiled again, cooled, and kept in the fridge. When you want to have some ganjang-gejang, take a portion out of the freezer, thaw it out in the fridge, put in onto a serving bowl or plate and add some marinade to it.

I just bought blue crabs but they were already dead.
I cracked them open and they don’t look particularly fresh – kind of on the brownish side.
Plus no roe – just a bit of yellow stuff in some of them.
I’m still going to make the recipe, but I will put them in hot marinade so they will cook… aiguuuu :(
Well, still better than getting sick!
Will try raw when I find them alive..
Thanks for the recipe. The marinade is boiling right now and a delicious smell is quickly filling up the house! I’m sure it’ll still be yummy even cooked..

Hi Maangchi!
I have a question about the types of crabs I can use..
Do I have to use blue crabs or are there any other types of crabs that can be eaten raw?
Haha it is pretty difficult (and quite impossible) find blue crabs in my country:( And quite frankly, IM DYING TO TRY THIS RECIPE.. It’s all your fault! It looks too deliciousXD

maangchi I bought a dozen female crabs from chinatown but only some of them have eggs in it…. they are sitting in the sauce now but i am worried abt the taste…. will crabs without egg taste as good? how did you pick your crabs? any trusting place or method?

Thank you for posting this recipe. I spend my summers catching blue crabs and they are very delicious. I give blue crab to the owner of a store near me. His wife uses them to make this dish and is always excited when I bring fresh crab. I am going to try this recipe!

I have one piece of advice. I handle crab a lot. Instead of putting in the freezer for two hours, you can put them into ice water for 5 or 10 minutes. Just put your crab in a 5 gallon bucket and dump a bag of ice on them. After a few minutes they will slow down, add some water and wait another 5 or ten minutes and they will be totally lifeless. Then just take them out one at a time as you clean them.

Thank you for sharing this recipe, I’ve been dying to try ganjang gejang for years! It was just as delicious as I thought it would be and I ended up making another batch as soon as I finished eating the first one, lol. I wasn’t able to get any female crabs from the market due to fishing restrictions, but the male blue swimmer crabs here are quite nice and fat so I am not complaining.
I bought four crabs and the total weight was 3 pounds, so each of my crabs was probably twice as large as the ones in the video =D. Big crabs are great as they are full of meat and are easier to eat, but they definitely take longer to marinate. I’ve tried eating my first crab after about 30 hours and it was raw and disgusting, I almost threw the whole batch out. Thank God I have decided against it, they were perfect after a couple more days in the fridge.
I am bad at following exact recipes, so I’ve added a couple of cloves, Szechuan peppercorns and black peppercorns to the boiling broth and Mirin, Shiaoxing wine, sesame oil, raw chopped garlic and scallions after it was cooled. That was probably not authentic and generally unnecessary, but the taste was great. Can’t wait for my second batch two be ready for eating =)

I have been following your cooking channel and tried a few recipes you recommended. Tonight, i am attempting to make Ganjang-gejang using your recipe. Since I am staying alone, i like to know how to preserve it. Your last note mentioned about separating the crab and the marinade which needs to be boiled again. If i got it right you meant separating marinated crab from marinade, not freezing fresh crab till i want to make ganjang gejang. Please confirm it. Many thanks.

yes, separate marinated crabs from marinade.
I’m sure you read the tips, right? Good luck with making delicious ganjanggejang!
“If you want to keep this for over a week, you’ll need to do a little work to safely preserve it. The crabs and the marinade need to be separated, and the crabs should be portioned into plastic bags and frozen. The marinade needs to be boiled again, cooled, and kept in the fridge. When you want to have some ganjang-gejang, take a portion out of the freezer, thaw it out in the fridge, put in onto a serving bowl or plate and add some marinade to it.”

Oh, I’m so happy right now. You posted a recipe to my favorite food. :)

I’ve been wanting to learn how to make this for years. I tried once, and it turned out very mushy. One tip about the crabs. I use the freezer method when killing mine for crab soup, but on a Youtube video of a pickled crab factory, I saw that how they like to handle their crabs is to drop them into ice water (with chunks of ice floating on top) right before they start to clean them. I tried it once, and it does seem to kill or put them to sleep in just a couple of seconds.

Hi maangchi
i have been craving this dish and have made it. the problem is i bought my crabs in china town (female blue crabs) and not many had tommalley. They had this pink thing inside. Is that safe to eat? and i remember my mother boiling the soy sauce after a few days…is it still safe to eat after 24 hours? I just wanted to double check because i hear with crabs you have to be careful or else you can get stomach problems. Thank you!

Being in Rhode Island, we can go down to Narragansett and get crabs right off the boat. When my Mom and Aunt make this we have to wait before we can eat it, but we use the large crabs. I don’t know if I could make this myself.

I am going to be making chicken wings tonight but, using a sauce based on kongjang. I’ll be coating the chicken instead of soybeans and adding a dash of hot sesame seed oil. Bringing it to a cookout on Saturday.

Thank you. Yes, I have watched a long time. I have also watched my Aunt, and Mom, since I was a baby. I love cooking. My friends tease me, in a loving way, when we go out to eat because they know when I am analyzing while I am eating something. I try to figure out what I am tasting.
Even though I am in RI we take trips to New York and stop at Hmart in your area, surprised I have not run into you yet. One day I will attend a meet up and bring food I have prepared, maybe even the chicken!

Tks so much for this recipe. I always eat it when I am in Korea but at some restaurants, they can be way too salty. There is a similar Shanghainese version which is also very yummy. I’ll be making this recipe soon. Tks so so much.

I hope u don’t mind but I would like to respond to fusionjack’s question abt dead crabs. Well, for us Chinese, we DO NOT buy (and cook) the crabs (any variety) when they are already dead (raw) while they are still at the fishmongers.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOOVE Gejang!!!! It is one of my most favorite dishes! Thank you a million for posting it! My fiance brought me a crab once but I didn’t know how to work it and so I just cooked it. But now I can make my very own gejang! Yeeehaa! :D